New Years Eve

It's midnight somewhere! 

May the best of the old

and the promise of the new

both be yours in the New Year. 

Cactus spires

Cactus spires aspire to the heights.  These looked architectural to me. So I post this in honor of my grandson who likes tall buildings.  Let us all aspire to greater things in the New Year to come!

Merry Christmas!

One fall day I found a whole bed of hibiscus flowering in a garden off of Speer Boulevard and shot several angles.  In this one I liked the pleated look of the newly opening bud and the mostly the red color of the flower and the green of the stem. 

Everyone have a Good Holiday Season!  

Red and Green

Christmas colors red and green in the prickly pear tunas and plant. We are in a mild stretch of weather again.  Makes getting out and about much easier on the body! 

Baby it's cold outside!

It was minus -15 last night and my older house didn't like it one bit.  I had water leaking down the basement wall at 2:30 am.  Fortunately the shutoff valve worked. We have lived here a long time and never had this kind of problem before, but just like us the house is getting older!  Oh, Well,  thought the milkweed seeds above looked sort of cold.  Can take snow pictures now as well since we got almost 5 inches yesterday.  It was so cold that the snow was light and fluffy, easy to just brush away with a broom.  

Green Philodendron

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Had fun being with family. Green healing colors above for those who over ate (me included).  A philodendron leaf with sun shining through it.

Last of the Sunflowers

Needed a little warmth this cold snowy day.  After a trip to the botanic gardens after light frosts - found this sunflower blooming amongst the dried grasses.  It looks like a sun ball, could use the real sun coming out and warming up the day. Perhaps the warm colors will help!

Day of the Dead

 Took a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens for flower pictures and happened on a display of “Dia de los Muertos” a Mexican tradition that celebrates those who have departed Oct 31st to Nov 2nd. . They had several alters set up – one to pets, one to a vet from Afghanistan; and one to a house lost to the Black Forest Fire. The displays were interesting. As you walked into the gardens there were 2 decorated coffins. One of which is above.

Blue Morning Glory

This has been one of my favorite mandala, it is a square tile with several buds of the blue morning glory that climbed around my back door one year.   Hope you have enjoyed the variety of shapes in the Morning Glory series. 

Morning Glory Swirl

Sometime it's not the flower but the bud that draws my interest.  The ribs and the swirl of this bud and the complementary colors behind drew me in. 

morning glory glowing edges

Another purple morning glory with the added effect of glowing edges (from Photoshop).  Besides doing interesting things to the colors - the added whiteness highlighted the twisting tendrils in the center of this mandala.  The tendrils always reaching for the sky.  Every morning when I went out to see them I was never the first - the bees always beat me to the flower, you could tell by the tell tale bits of pollen they would leave in their wake. In this picture and others, it reminded me of fire works.

Purple Morning Glory

All colors in this flower that only opens for a short while in the morning, this morning glory purple graduating to white in a square (8 pie piece sections of the original picture). Think I took more pictures of the purple morning glories - just liked their deep rich color. 

White Morning Glory

White is always a hard thing to photograph because it's so easy to blow out the detail on anything white. The throat of the flower has a pink/purplish hue and the stamens are visible with some detail in the whitest part of the flower. They were a delight to behold even if they were hard to photograph.

Morning Glory Series

All colors of morning glories grew in my garden this year, pink, purple, white, blue and even a striped one.  So in celebration of them here is a pink one.  A series on morning glories will follow.

Gateway to the Rockies Art Show

Cosmos are another late summer flower - liked the star shape at the center of this one.  Would like to announce 3 of my Mandala were juried into the Gateway to the Rockies Art Show open October 9 through November 7, 2013, at the Aurora History Museum,  15051 E Alameda Pkwy, Aurora, CO, open Tue - Fri 9 - 4; Sat and Sun 11-4.  Please join me for a Wine and Cheese reception Friday, October 11, from 5-7:30pm.

one waterlily

Here is one mandala of a waterlily, I liked it for the soft pastel colors, which seemed peaceful to rest the eye on.  Certainly not as bold as the sunflowers.

Sunflower Star

On my way out of the Botanic Gardens this sunflower was facing the sun and had an area in shadow in front of it.  I liked the bright yellow color.  

Another Sunflower

Another sunflower from my garden that was growing right next to a purple morning glory.   The colors are complementary, the purple makes the orange pop!

Sunflower with glowing edges

Glowing edges does neat things to the colors and indeed makes the edges glow.  I liked the 5 point star in the middle of this created sunflower.



Glowing edges bee

Glowing edges version of the previous mandala.  I liked the different colors that became visible

and you can still make out the bee.  Ah, not quite the same this is a 6 pointed star and the previous one is a 5 pointed star, smaller slice of the pie above.)

Another Bee

A bee on Black and Blue Salvia. I contacted the Botanic Gardens to find out what this plant was and thought the name was interesting!  Even found it online and ordered a plant. 

Bee Square

Although the overall picture is round the bees add a partial square element to the composition.  At the Botanic Gardens there are bees all over, so it is not surprising that they find their way into the pictures I take there.  The reddish color of this sunflower added interest.  The yellow dots are the tiny individual flowers that make each sunflower seed.

Sunflower Square

Sunflowers are gorgeous by themselves or manipulated like my Square above. This one came up in my garden and had rust colored streaks that made for the fire like color around the edges.  The square format has interesting design elements

One Man Show

I am fortunate to have a one man show at the Jefferson Unitarian Church, 14350 W. 32nd Ave in Golden, CO  80401 from September 1st to September 29, 2013.  The Church is open from 9:30 am to 4 pm, Monday thru Friday and open to view the work on Sunday from 12 to 1:30.  The work is in their sanctuary.  

Water lilies

Making mandalas from water lilies has not worked out well, so after a recent trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens. I had to post these glorious pictures of the water lilies there.  There were flowers blooming all over the gardens and I will share them with you in the coming weeks.

Gnome Cottage

Back in the 1970's my husband made this gnome cottage out of a gourd and a piece of drift wood.  It's about 9" long. Rabbits, frogs, a crystal and a 'air' plant decorate it now. At Christmas, the fake walnut hanging from the driftwood branch opens up to a tiny nativity scene and I hang a star above it.  Anyhow enough on 'little' things, back to flowers which are in glorious bloom now - in the next post!

My Beach Bowl

The beach in a bowl with more sand, some glass 'water' elements and a rock of Sea Jasper tucked on the edge.   Putting the Sea Jasper back in the sea and the bowl is round!  Anyhow had fun doing it.

Day at the beach

While not truly a fairy garden - I bought this "Day at the Beach" from American Zen with the hopes of turning it into a mini beach garden.  It was so complete I just set it up as it was sand, sling chair, umbrella, beach ball, sandals and sea shells to boot. The whole thing is just 4 inches square. I had started my search looking for a mini Adirondack chair but the shipping cost was prohibitive. 

Fairy Picnic

Again you have to do some hunting - for the fairy.  I put a mini table and chairs under an arbor, which is much overgrown.  The red in the middle is the edge of a red mushroom - the ceramic kind you can buy to stick in various pots.

Fairy Garden

May be a bit hard to see but you have to look for fairies and elves hiding in the foliage.  When I first put this together - I had a door, a bench, an elf and some plants.  You can still see bits pieces of theses things in the mandala, but the ivy sort of took over.   When I was looking at the picture before uploading it, I thought it looked like the middle was a table set for six.  Have fun looking!

Flower Fairy in the Thistles

If you look closely you can see a figure of light between the thistle heads.  I have chosen to call this 'flower fairy between the thistle heads', a bit whimsical on my part, but I fell in love with the fairy flower books of Cicely Mary Barker.  This year I have been refining my real 'fariy gardens'.  The thistle above is a white thistle from the mountains, with tinges of pink. 

Zentangle original

Here's my original zentangle filled with color from the 'paint bucket' in Photoshop.

Zentangle 3

I left some of the paper white in this zentangle, not much, but some.  To me it looks like a colorful pen being put to the paper drawing the thick light blue line.  I will post the Tangle I took it from next time. 

Zentangle 2

Welcome to July - I will continue with a few more zen tangles made into Mandala.  I like the bright colors available in Photoshop!   Someone suggested that the large squares on a calender are just right for practicing zen tangle patterns.  So I filled a page yesterday while listening to a book on tape. 

Zentangle 1

Another zentangle. A purple, red, green pallet. I have been making a zentangle a day.   Thought I would post a couple of them in the next few weeks.

doodle to Zentangle

No this is not a flower - I have doodled on paper all my life and this is one of the doodles I saved, scanned, turned into a kaleidoscope and filled with color.  At the present time I have this desire to color everything with primary very bright, colors.  When you take a photo you are presented with the colors that come thru the view finder, some of them in the case of flowers can also be very bright. But to pour my unlimited color choice out with the Photoshop paint bucket feature is fun!  This is all because of an new fad called Zentangles!  Google it.  The structure of Zentangles give my doodling a purpose.

geranium and bud

More than anything else the colors in this mandala were pleasing  to me.  Just felt calm and soothing to me.  We need something calm and soothing after the several fires that broke out yesterday.  The one in the Black Forest area is burning houses.  The geranium bud is hanging down toward the center, the flower is pointing out toward the sides.   

Spring Flowers

The purple tulips caught my attention and the white hanging flower completed the scene, waveing like a banner.  I love spring flowers after a winter with nothing, the plants are busting out in flower now. 

Final Balloon Flower

The black shapes and the repeat of the rainbow colors in the center appealed to me, and the blue of the sky was almost the same blue as on the Balloon.   Hope you enjoyed the Balloon Series it is back to flowers in the next post!

Balloon Flower 4

More orange and other colors.  I like that you can really see the balloon basket, light side and dark side, which gets lost in some of the other balloon flower pictures.

Balloon Flower 3

I liked this balloon - it made for a wild pattern of color, bright, too.  Wanted to let you know that I got a mandala into the Gilpin Arts Show in Central City again, so if you are up there for the Opera or just because, take a peek at the show directly across from the Opera House, June 8th through August 3, 2013. Opening Reception, Saturday, June 8th from 4:00 to 7:00 pm.

blue, green, pink balloon flower

Blue, green, pink colors in this balloon with the yellow balloon basket in the middle



Balloon Flower 2

My favorite subject Frogs in the Pond!  This hot air balloon was fun to watch and it looks like I have a whole pond for the frog and fish to play in!  Cattails, goldfish and all.

Balloon Flower

 

Looking up at the hot air balloon, the colors radiate from the center and when I take a pie piece of the picture and rotate it around - it looks like a multi-colored flower. I'm going to do a series, with all the beautiful colors of the balloons I saw that weekend.

Touch and go

This is a picture of the actual touching of the water and the reflection of the balloon - so the blue is the water and the darker yellow in the middle is the reflection.  It's fun to watch, some balloon pilots have varying degrees of difficultly accomplishing this maneuver.

Balloon Rodeo

Decided to take a new direction for a bit as the cold weather slowed all the flowers.  The Steamboat Balloon rodeo two years ago, allowed ample opportunity for taking pictures.  There was a touch and go event, where the balloon maneuvers over a small body of water, the balloon basket touches the surface and immediately lifts into the air.  The center has reflections of the balloon in the water.

new web site

Pansies survive the snow and cold!  They are my favorite Spring flower.  I am in the process of starting up a new web site, that will incorporate my blog into the site.  You can find the site at www.ellenwestbrook.com 

It is a work in progress, so will be working out the kinks and getting used to the new upload requirements, bear with me.  I will post to both sites for a while.

Violet violet

The color purple, I like it. My fragrant violets are up and perfuming the air, you have to bend over to smell and to look at them, they are just tiny flowers.  The deeper color is from the shadowed throat of the flower. Even our latest snow and cold snap didn't affect these little flowers.

The flower

Only the flower of the snowdrop in shades of white. 

Spring is here!

In Colorado even though this is the official first day of Spring, we are going to have snow this weekend! Snowdrops come up first because they are so hardy - even with the snow those snowdrops that all have blooms will still have blooms after the snow melts.  The crocus that popped out today might not fair so well.  The crossing of the dried material and the new green shoots made for interesting patterns.  Enjoy Spring!